He didn’t feel.
“I’m going to find out who did, and I’m going to rip them apart worse than they did my family.” Resolute. No boasting.
He’d believe her—if he could allow that to happen. “My team and I will investigate this, it’s what we do. We’ll start with you coming back to our headquarters.”
She jumped up faster than he could blink. No one startled him like that. He’d need to meditate for hours to straighten the upheaval this girl caused within him.
“I’m going down to the crime scene; I don’t want you near them.” Her eyes glittered with defiance, her gaze caught on his holstered gun.
He read her intentions. “Don’t even think about it.” His voice was quiet, hard.
She sucked in a breath and met his steady gaze. “Or what?”
Her fear washed over him, and…it bothered him. “Or I’ll detain you before your fingers touch metal and throw you into a holding cell.”
A blink of confusion flashed through her expression. “Holding cell?”
Rourke barked out a laugh. “What’d you think I’d do?” His laughter died. The answer was written across her pale face. “I wouldn’t have faulted you for defending yourself, just been annoyed. But I need to take you somewhere so you can tell us what you know, and I can get back to investigating these murders.”
She studied him for a heartbeat before shaking her head. “No. I need to go there, too, and look around.”
A bad idea if he’d ever heard of one. “Angel, we’ve been at this a long time. What do you think you’ll find that we can’t?”
She glared at him with those eyes that tempted him to step into a different world, one where violence wasn’t a steady diet in his life. “What’s your name?”
Not the statement he’d been expecting. “Rourke.”
“Let me explain.” Her voice dripped sappy sweet, like she had to talk slow so he could keep up. “I was raised with them. I know their smells, their habits. I know who their friends and acquaintances are, and more importantly, I know their smells, too. If any one of them had anything to do with tonight, I’ll know. Tell me, Rourke, what can you do down there?”
Learn whether or not demons had been involved, but that wasn’t a detail he’d be sharing with her. She was right about knowing the smells, however. If she could stomach wading through the details, she might have unique insight.
“What would you do if it was your family?” she challenged.
One question and the unusual spikes of good mood vanished. He was ice. “I’d track down the bastards who did it and thank them.”
She tilted her head. The faint light of the moon danced through her hair. “I’m not surprised.”
The arch tone in her voice pissed him off. He wrapped his hand around her upper arm and flashed her back to the murder ground.
“What the hell, dude?” She yanked her arm away and stumbled a few steps back.
Bishop shut the trunk of the human’s car and threw a questioning look Rourke’s way.
“She wants to help,” Rourke answered, irritation heavy in his voice. “Grace, this is my partner Bishop.”
“What are you doing with their car?” Grace scanned the area, the one that no longer held three bodies. “Are my mom, dad, and brother in there? What are you going to do with it, make it look like an accident?”
Way more gruesome and thorough than that, angel.
His buddy was shit at hiding what he was thinking, and Grace picked up on that right away. Shocked disbelief radiated off of her.
She spun on him. “What is he doing with them?”
“I’ll tell you, but never forget one thing. Rule number one is to protect our species.” When she grudgingly nodded, he continued, “We have a contact in the junk yard. He’ll crush the car with the bodies inside and drop it in the bed of one of our trucks. Then we’ll bury it where no human will ever find them.”
Her face turned ashen, her distain surrounded Rourke. Bishop dropped his head and cursed.
“Why?” Her rage made her voice quiver.
“Remember rule number one? Protect our people. We’ll clean out their house, and if you live with them, your life with it. Eventually the bank will get it, people will wonder what happened, but then they’ll forget. Meaning, they won’t look for them—or you—and therefore, they won’t find out they’re dead, and vampires were involved. You can’t go home.”
The smack across his face echoed through the clearing. The fury behind her hit added more force than he’d have guessed. The eyes of Bishop rivaled the size of the moon.
For an eighty-four-year-old vampire, this young thing was really catching him unaware.
He worked his jaw. Plenty of females slapped him. Grace hit him with an open-hand. There was a difference.
“I wouldn’t do that again.” His warning should’ve made her quake in her sensible hiking shoes.
“Or what? You’ll bury my family in some cold, dark grave where everyone can forget about them? You’ll move me out of my home—without my permission? Tell me, Rourke, what else will you do?”
“Lock you up and leave you out of this investigation entirely.”
Grace clamped her mouth shut, her full lower lip sticking out slightly, mesmerizing him.
He waited for her decision. On this, he would not compromise.
She glanced back over her shoulder where Bishop stood rigidly, watching the play between them. Her watery eyes lingered on the car, white teeth nibbled on her lower lip. She struggled to maintain her composure.
“Do they have to be crushed, too? Can’t we bury them deep in the hills?”
“We don’t have the manpower.” Not with the underworld causing problems that could affect all the races roaming the planet.
“My dead family has obviously never bothered you, but I will not let you crush them in a heap of metal like they’re trash that needs to be hidden.” Vibrations ran through her muscles, rose red bled into her eyes. She disappeared.
He spun toward the car where she reappeared. Surprise filled Bishop’s expression as he spun toward her. She ripped the car door open and dove inside. Bishop reached for her, but Rourke beat him to the door. She locked it.
He couldn’t ruin the car. They still had to drive it to the junk yard and couldn’t draw attention. He flashed to the passenger side and opened the door. “Grace, listen to me.”
She screamed and clambered to open the door, but it was still locked.
With a sigh, he slid into the passenger seat. She kicked at him, but he caught her legs and pulled her toward him. She yelped as she bounced over the console. He dropped her legs and caught her shoulders.
“All right,” he snapped.
Her struggles weakened.
“We’ll bury them, okay?”
The fear in her eyes morphed into trepidation that he lied. “Why would you do that?”
He wanted to fucking know, too. “Because you went ballistic. I’ll dig the damn hole myself.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Bishop offered from outside the car. He shrugged at Rourke’s furious expression. “She’s killing me. I didn’t know they were her people.”
Rourke released her and she scrambled out of the car to face Bishop.
“Thank you.”
Her grateful smile did two things to Rourke: piss him off it wasn’t aimed toward him and introduce shame back into his emotional repertoire. Twice tonight, must be a record.
“I have to say goodbye.” Hastily wiping her eyes, she trudged toward the car. Bishop shuffled to the side, glancing at the vehicle like he was reorganizing how he would’ve arranged the bodies for her viewing.
Rourke folded his arms across his chest and glowered at her, then at Bishop, who opened the trunk with this fob before folding his hands respectfully in front of him, head bowed.
As for Rourke, he didn’t let her out of his sight.
Her shoulders drooped, her head dropped. He smelled her tears as she silently wept. She reached in to stroke her
brother’s ravaged face. He had also worn a Freemont-U sweater now dried into a rusty brown color from his blood. Her parents had dressed for the outdoors, no indication they were up to anything nefarious other than a nighttime hike with their vampire daughter.
She moved around to the door and bent inside, her body shaking.
Logically, he knew there were warm, loving families out there, even in the vampire world. What must it be like to be a part of one? He followed a male who’d come from a family whose dynamics were similar to Grace’s. It had molded Demetrius into a male Rourke had decided to follow to the death as soon as he’d met him.
After they’d brawled in an alley until neither of them could stand.
Grace shut the trunk door, staying her hand for a heartbeat on the frame. “Why is there the faint smell of a book of matches?”
He and Bishop exchanged looks. Rourke calculated the risks of telling her what their society faced. If she happened to be cooperating with demons, she’d know about them anyway. His intuition told him she wasn’t, but he didn’t trust easily. He trusted his inner circle and that was it. If she didn’t know about demons, perhaps her assistance into the case would be beneficial.
“Brimstone.”
“I know the sulfur smell, but where’s it from?”
“Where else?”
She blinked and stepped away from the car. “Brimstone for real? Are you saying the smell came from Hell?”
“Bingo.”
Before they could continue their conversation, Bishop went around the car to get inside. “I need to get going to finish everything before daybreak.”
Grace awarded him a soft smile of thanks. For two seconds, Rourke hated the guy.
“What does that mean?” She roamed the area, smelling and inspecting every tree, each blade of grass. She stepped nimbly through the pile of leaves dumped from the branches.
“Demons are trying to infiltrate themselves into our race, aiming to open a portal that will allow the Circle of Thirteen free access to our realm.”
Grace stopped to stare at him. “Seriously?”
He inclined his head once. Usually accused of being too serious, he wasn’t sure if she was legitimately asking.
“And this circle—demons?”
“All thirteen of them. There’s more of course, these are the most powerful. Rulers of the underworld, if you will. Possession is the key, but finding thirteen powerful hosts to take over has proven challenging for them. Not many vampires buy their whole my-power-is-your-power spiel.”
Squatting down, she shuffled through a pile of dried, brown leaves. “Why vampires and not shifters or humans?”
“Don’t you know, angel? We’re inherently more evil than shifters? That’s why we walk in the dark, and all that bullshit, while shifters frolic in the woods.”
Chapter Two
The only reason Grace wasn’t wallowing in her grief was because of her determination to follow this through. She needed to do something—for her family. Even it meant cooperating with Rourke, who she should hate and fear.
Yet…he’d done nothing to earn those feelings. He’d even been almost compassionate. A man who indiscriminately murders parents of small children don’t help victims investigate their loved ones’ murders, or offer to bury them because it destroyed her to think of them crushed.
Unless he was playing her for some reason. What would it be? He didn’t portray a male who’d invest himself in a scheme. He followed thought by action, not manipulation.
“Is it because we drink blood that we’re supposed to be evil?” She crept along the ground, using all her senses to ferret out a clue.
“Which came first the chicken or the egg? Did we turn evil because we drank blood, or did we drink blood because we were evil?” Rourke followed her. She wanted to scream at him to help her, but he seemed more intent on monitoring her progress. “Although many shifters I’ve met over the last several decades liked their meat pretty damn raw.”
“Decades?” she echoed, glancing up at him. The male looked about thirty, tops.
His eyes narrowed on her. “Decades, angel. You knew that part right?”
Defensiveness returned to her spine. “My parents taught me a lot.” I just haven’t met any other vampires.
His dark gaze, unnerving in its intensity, remained pinned on her. “Why, when you say certain things, do I feel like you’re blaming me for the all the wrongs in the world?”
Because she did. Couldn’t prove it, but he was involved in her families’ deaths somehow. Her dream told her. And it was true. Right? “If that’s the way you’re interpreting my words, it’s not my problem.”
His midnight gaze scrutinized her.
She rose and continued her search in an effort to divert his unnerving attention, and her wavering conviction in his role in her nightmare. “What’s your take on what happened?
“Ladies first.” He hadn’t moved. Crossing his arms, biceps flexing, he waited.
“I didn’t go to school for forensics.” Facing him, she put her hands on her hips.
He rolled a shoulder. “Give it a shot.”
Pointing to the road, she laid out her assumption of how events played out. “The shifters said they moved their car and got their— ” she gulped, she could do this, “—bodies off the road. Someone stopped my parents and attacked. The killers waited, somehow knowing they’d be out here.” Letting her hand fall, she returned her attention back to him. “And demons were involved. That’s all I got.”
He inclined his head, moonlight glinting off his raven hair, giving him an otherworld appeal. As if he needed more appeal. “It’s possible it was a murder of convenience. If the murderers hunted here enough, humans were bound to show up for a night hike.”
Grace’s shoulders drooped. As if she didn’t feel guilty enough, her family would be alive if they hadn’t accommodated her paranormal needs. Finding out who was responsible pushed aside those feelings; they’d accomplish nothing. She nimbly stepped through the trees, all her senses working at full capacity.
Rourke studied her. The burn of his assessing gaze on her body making her curse her heightened senses, and him. Why couldn’t it have been the goliath who stayed behind? He at least seemed to have more empathy than a brick.
“I’m going to check the other side of the road.” She was relieved to increase the distance between them, only to feel a trickle between her shoulder blades.
Glancing over her shoulder, she jumped. Rourke had followed her, now not three feet behind. That damn eyebrow cocked again. She ignored him and hurried across the road.
Nothing. Not one drop of blood and the scent of brimstone dropped drastically.
“The action was all on the other side where we were.” She brushed a stray strand of hair off her face.
His eyes followed her actions, his expression unreadable. “It appears so.”
He didn’t elaborate. With a disgusted sigh, she stomped across the road. No tire marks. Her dad had stopped intentionally. Thinking someone needed help? Then her dad, mom, and brother had all been slaughtered. The pale faces, caught in the grimace of death, rose in her mind. Grace’s throat swelled. She blinked rapidly to keep the tears at bay.
She rerouted her mind to the task at hand. “Their blood was consumed.”
A glint of approval entered his black gaze. “Much of it, yes.”
Her eyes widened. “That’s why you’re not helping? You’ve already read the crime scene and you’re just humoring me?”
“You wanted to help.”
“Of course I did. My family was slaughtered.” Tears pricked behind her eyes. She would not cry in front of him again. “Do you have any idea what that feels like?”
His handsome features clouded over. “It was very freeing to not have to do it myself.”
He hadn’t been joking before about thanking his family’s murderers?
“Your relatives are even worse than you?” Her retort slipped out before she could sensor herself. Dammit, why d
idn’t she think before spewing the first thing that popped to mind?
“You have no idea, angel.”
His intensity increased tenfold, like a blinding light. She averted her eyes.
A small silver speck captured her attention. Something lay by the base of a tree.
“What is that?” She crept closer. “Maybe that’s where they waited for their victims to drive by.”
A glance at Rourke stopped her in her tracks. His brow was furrowed with interest. The first she’d seen all night.
“What?” he asked, bypassing her to reach the spot first.
He knelt and uncovered the silver object. Grace waited for him to pick it up, but he stared at it so long, she bent to do it herself. He snatched it up and pocketed it.
“Whoa. What the hell? Lemme see it.”
He rose and gripped her elbow and the world blinked away. When she reoriented, she faced a large, square gray building with limited windows in front of her.
She peered up at the concrete monstrosity. “Where are we?”
“Headquarters.”
He hauled her toward a door.
“And? What was the thing you found?”
He pulled her through the door that opened into a barren hallway. “Just something left behind, probably by a hiker. I doubt it has anything to do with the murders.”
“Bullshit.” When he flicked a hard look her way, she continued. “I can smell your lie, and it’s my family’s murder. We agreed I’d help, and I want to see what I found.”
Her words fell on uncaring ears.
Grace dug in her heels and yanked her arm back. His hand snapped off and he skidded to a halt. She’d have the bruises to prove the force of his hold on her.
She was treated to another expression in his arsenal. Shock. He wasn’t a male who was taken by surprise often. She grinned in triumph.
“Show me.” Motioning with her fingers, she also tapped her foot to show she meant business.
Back to stone cold Rourke, he dug out the slender metal object.
She plucked it away from him. While examining the object that resembled one half of tweezers, she absentmindedly rubbed her sore elbow.
Rourke (New Vampire Disorder Book 2) Page 2